Azo (ca. 1165 to ca. 1220/30) and Accursius (1182/5 to ca. 1263) Emanuele Conte 3 Azo of Bologna and his best-known student, Accursius, were the two most prom- inent figures of the school of civil (that is, Roman) law in Bologna during the first half of the thirteenth century. Legal historians refer to this as the heyday of the “school of glossators,” stressing the slow and progressive compilation of a set of short commentaries written in the margins of the books carrying the actual text of the Justinian compilation. While Azo’s work would influence gen- erations of jurists, Accursius—the most famous among the many lawyers who had been students of Azo—achieved his own immortality by publishing the defini- tive compilation of glosses, called the Apparatus ordinarius, or the “Ordinary Gloss.” Published in manuscripts shortly before the mid-thirteenth century, the Apparatus continued to be copied regularly in every manuscript of the Codex, of the three parts of the Digest, of the Institutes, and of the Authenticum until the invention of the printing press. Since the late fifteenth century, the Apparatus has been printed in every edition of the Corpus Iuris Civilis, spreading its influence for centuries. Azo Scholars presume that Azo was born before 1170, probably around 1165, in Bologna, where he spent his whole life. His family was not rich; some sources give him the name Porcus (that is, “pig” in colloquial Italian) or Portius, but in legal literature he is always mentioned simply as Azo. His name appears for the first time in a document dated 1190, in which he already bears the title of legis doctor, meaning that he already had received his doctorate and was authorized to teach at the university level. Azo’s main teacher in Bologna was Joannes Bassianus, who was, in turn, a direct student of Bulgarus. Legal historians have stressed this academic geneal- ogy, defining the line from Bulgarus to Joannes Bassianus to Azo to Accursius as the orthodox school of the Bolognese glossators. 1 These glossators have been described as particularly rigorous in the interpretation of Roman law and rela- tively suspicious towards local legislation, feudal law, and canon law, following Accursius’s statement that “everything can be founded in the Corpus of Justin- ian’s law” ( omnia in corpore iuris inveniuntur). 2